Hey, remember when Taco Bell used the fiery re-entry of Space Station Mir for an advertising campaign?!
Mir, meaning "Peace" (or "World") in Russian, was a Soviet Space program craft, launched February19, 1986, and was intended for a 5-year mission. After the Russian Federation was established in 1991, Roskosmos continued to operate experiments on the station until 2001.
Side Note: Cosmonauts Aleksandr Volkov & Sergei Krikalev were aboard Mir during the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. When they left Earth, they were Soviets. When they returned from orbit, they were citizens of the Russian Federation. Volkov and Krikalev are the only space travelers whose citizenship changed while they were away from their planet
Mir was scheduled to be decommissioned over the South Pacific Ocean, guided back toward Earth to burn up in atmosphere. However, it was the largest object ever to be brought back from space! Would pieces survive? The marketing department at Taco Bell Corporation created a 40x40 foot target with the words "FREE TACO HERE" around a bell bullseye, and floated it off the coast of Australia.
Chris Becker, vice president of brand communications, confirmed: "If Mir rings our bell, we will offer a free taco to everyone in the USA."
Click to play hilarious "no tacos for you" video (1:42)
In one of the most precious pieces of space press ever, ABC asked the Little Shop of Physics: what were the odds of Mir hitting that target? YIKES, about 1 in 7.5 billion! No tacos for you! And after all the trouble Taco Bell went through to purchase insurance, covering anticipated costs of free food upon a direct hit.
Мир dipped from its 139-mile-high orbit, and re-entered Earth's atmosphere on March 23, 2001 -- losing solar panels first, and then many larger modules broke into fragments around the 50-mile mark. Photographers captured swarms of incandescent fragments hurtling toward the sea at near-sonic speeds amid streaming smoke trails. After 86,331 orbits, Mir plunged into the ocean off the coast of New Zealand at 175 West longitude, 25 South latitude.
Partly cloudy with no chance of taco...Will Taco Bell do the same for China's Tiangong 1 space station? One imagines attrition in the marketing department has resulted in a new staff, but here's hoping they give us another chance for free food.
Over the coming week, most likely between March 30 - April 2, 2018, China's 8-ton orbiting lab is scheduled to fall back to Earth -- uncontrolled, as Chinese engineers have lost contact. In less-than-reassuring press releases, those who calculate possible orbital dynamics cannot say where it will crash -- only that it will definitely crash -- across a HUGE potential area. Like Mir and Skylab (1979), much of the "heavenly" orbiter is expected to burn in the upper atmosphere, but various sized pieces are still expected to hit the planet.
What are the odds of it falling in your yard? Waaaaay more than 7.5 billion to 1. More like 20 trillion to 1. First off, it's only about 10% of the size of Skylab, and only the 50th largest thing to fall from the sky, planned or unplanned. However, if you're the lucky (?) recipient, be safe: do not touch it, and contact local authorities.
Launched from Jiuquan September 29, 2011, the 19.4-meter-long module has been in orbit for 6 years and 181 days, and by the end of the week, will have completed nearly 38,000 orbits.
Follow re-entry updates of Tiangong 1 at the official ESA blog, or follow real-time tracking of the space station at SatFlare.
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